[Edit - this is all now official. Go, pre-order!]
So the announcement is imminent and resourceful souls from our forums discovered that on the Codemasters’ account pages, there was already information up about pre-ordering Siege of Mirkwood and the Adventurers’ Pack (which includes 2 extra character slots and shared storage). To get both it will cost £19.99 or 27.99 Euro, to pre-order just the Siege of Mirkwood will be £14.99 or 19.99 Euro. I don’t know my exchange rates all that well to relate the Sterling to Euro conversations. But £20 vs $20 is a bit more of a hit that expected.
Now, Codemasters appear to have gone for a more simplistic pricing structure than Turbine. There’s no hidden ‘pay for 3 months subscription and get Siege of Mirkwood free’ as far as we know so far. And we don’t know what Codemasters costs are in terms of setting up the digital download. And that’s me being charitable.
Mines of Moria cost me £14.99 from Play.com. It was probably £19.99 retail or bought direct from Codemasters. I forget, because I always shop around for the best deal for me. But this time I don’t get a shiny box to play with, I get to download the game, and Adventurers Pack, because let’s face it, I WILL get both. I hope it runs smoothly. And I honestly don’t mind if it costs me that kind of money on top of my Lifetime subscription to keep the game running in Europe. But – it’s not entirely what I expected, and I’m surprised what’s a relatively simple pricing structure needed to be signed off and took so long to get approval. Either it works for Codemasters or it doesn’t.
There would be complaints whatever the cost. That’s for certain. And let’s face it, the official announcement has yet to take place and more offers could go up there, or things could change. This isn’t officially ‘out there’ information, but I doubt it would surprise many of us if it turned out to be accurate.
There’s no mention of a release date. I’m far more interested in hearing WHEN we get it, than when we can ORDER it.
I’ll do a quick update as and when we hear more. For now, you can assume this is unofficially what we think will happen, based on the account pages.
[Edit: that was fast, now the EU pre-order page appears to be up and running with a new offer - the LotRO Triple Pack containing Shadows of Angmar, Mines of Moria and Siege of Mirkwood for £29.99 and coming with the Harbingers' Cloak for pre-ordering. A Special Edition of the Triple pack adds the Adventurers' Pack for an extra £5. But under 'additional offers' you can also buy the Adventurers' Pack for £4.99 and a Loot Bag for £4.99 also. The Loot Bag includes
Ten special in-game items specially selected from all the items ever released:
- Bree-horse (In-game mount for level 25 and up)
- Ring of Agility (+3 agility)
- Ranger's Cloak (+42 armour, +5% out of combat run speed boost)
- Waybread of Imladris (Removes wound and poison effects. Restores power, heals damage, and increases Morale & Power regeneration)
- Scented Hope Candles (+10 Radiance, stack of 5)
- Lucky Horseshoe (+5 Fate, additional +5 Fate when activated)
- Cloak of Durin’s Crown (+42 armor, +120 Non-combat morale regen)
- 5 Resist Acid Potions (+100 Acid Defence for 21 minutes)
- Pesky Dormouse (Housing decoration, this mouse exits his hole to look around your house)
- Ore-Miner’s Helm (Cosmetic head wear)
The offers for those of us who already have Shadows of Angmar and Mines of Moria are, indeed, as I posted above £14.99 for Siege of Mirkwood, and £19.99 for Siege of Mirkwood and the Adventurers' Pack (and only those buying both together as the 'special edition' get the unique mount!). As well as the possibility of buying the Loot Bag and Adventurers' Pack as stand-alone add-ons for £4.99 each. The Siege of Mirkwood offers can be pre-ordered now, from what I can tell. The Loot Bag has a 'coming soon' tag on it.]
